Religious Failure, Geopolitics, and Forced Displacement in Russia, Eastern Europe, and the South Caucasus

This book advances a Religious Failure Index, which highlights the ways in which religious institutions engage with state governance, geopolitics, and international affairs.

What happens when states fail to provide support to populations in need? What are the mechanisms of religious and political engagement with populations affected by organized violence, displacement, and resettlement? The book argues that when state structures fail to respond to violence, religious institutions are often among the first actors to assist and empower forcibly displaced populations. Establishing humanitarian initiatives, fostering transnational conservative networks, and promoting geopolitical interests have defined the interplay between religion, politics, and society in the Eastern Christian world from the end of the Cold War to the present day. This book advances a Religious Failure Index, which highlights the ways in which religious institutions engage with state governance, geopolitics, and international affairs. It offers a rigorous narrative of the ways in which Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Christian communities exert authority in a multi-faith geographical space marked by political rivalry, conflict, inequality, and forced displacement in Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine.